After reading a lot of news and blog posts on the situation in the Horn of Africa, I feel the need to make something clear: the drought in the Horn of Africa is not the cause of the famine we are seeing take shape in southern Somalia. We are being pounded by a narrative of this famine that more or less points to the failure of seasonal rains as its cause . . . which I see as a horrible abdication of responsibility for the human causes of this tragedy.

First, I recommend that anyone interested in this situation – or indeed in food security and famine more generally, to read Mike Davis’ book Late Victorian Holocausts. It is a very readable account of massive famines in the Victorian era that lays out the necessary intersection of weather, markets and politics to create tragedy – and also makes clear the point that rainfall alone is poorly correlated to famine. For those who want a deeper dive, have a look at the lit review (pages 15-18) of my article “Postmodern Conceptualizations, Modernist Applications: Rethinking the Role of Society in Food Security” to get a sense of where we are in contemporary thinking on food security. The long and short of it is that food insecurity is rarely about absolute supplies of food – mostly it is about access and entitlements to existing food supplies. The HoA situation does actually invoke outright scarcity, but that scarcity can be traced not just to weather – it is also about access to local and regional markets (weak at best) and politics/the state (Somalia lacks a sovereign state, and the patchy, ad hoc governance provided by al Shabaab does little to ensure either access or entitlement to food and livelihoods for the population).

For those who doubt this, look at the FEWS NET maps I put in previous posts (here and here). Famine stops at the Somali border. I assure you this is not a political manipulation of the data – it is the data we have. Basically, the people without a functional state and collapsing markets are being hit much harder than their counterparts in Ethiopia and Kenya, even though everyone is affected by the same bad rains, and the livelihoods of those in Somalia are not all that different than those across the borders in Ethiopia and Kenya. Rainfall is not the controlling variable for this differential outcome, because rainfall is not really variable across these borders where Ethiopia, Kenya and Somalia meet.

This is not to say that rainfall doesn’t matter – it certainly does. But it is not the most important thing. However, when we focus on rainfall variability exclusively, we end up in discussions and arguments that detract from understanding what went wrong here, and what we might do going forward. Yes, the drought reflects a climate extreme . . . but this extreme is not that stunningly anomalous in this part of the world – we are getting similar (but not quite as bad) results quite often these days. Indeed, these results seem to be coming more frequently, and appear to be tied to a shift in the climate of the region – and while it is a bit soon to say this definitively, this climate shift is very likely is a product of anthropogenic climate change. So, one could indirectly argue that the climate change (mostly driven by big emitters in the Global North) is having a terrible impact on the poorest and weakest in the Global South. It will take a while to make this a firm argument, though.

On the other hand, it is clear that politics and markets have failed the people of Somalia – and the rainfall just pushed a very bad situation over the precipice into crisis. Thus, this is a human crisis first and foremost, whatever you think of anthropogenic climate change. Politics and markets are human inventions, and the decisions that drive them are also human. We can’t blame this famine on the weather – we need to be looking at everything from local and national politics that shape access and entitlements to food to global food markets that have driven the price of needed staples up across the world, thus curtailing access for the poorest. The bad news: Humans caused this. The good news: If we caused it, we can prevent the next one.

Thanks Marci: At some point I will have to take up the double exposure thing . . . I find it really problematic because of the ways in which it reifies the economy/environment divide in a manner that has nothing to do with how people actually understand and address challenges in their own lives.

Please read the following article it shows you the Ogaden is been ignored and Famine doesn’t stop at the Somalia border
********************
Concern over potential human rights catastrophe in Ogaden as drought worsens situation.

Below is an article published by Oromsis:

The international community is well aware that the drought and famine engulfing the Horn of Africa is by far the worst humanitarian disaster to hit the region in 60 years. Resolve Ogaden Coalition, however, is saddened to report that the international community has thus far failed to address the rapidly deteriorating situation unfolding across the disputed Ogaden region of eastern Ethiopia.

For the last decade, the Ethiopian regime has undertaken one scorched earth campaign after another in the Ogaden. Abuses carried out by government forces and state-sponsored militias known as “Liyu Police” have led to the destruction of villages, water reserves, and the indiscriminate killings and detention of civilians, mass rape, and enormous population displacement. To date, tens of thousands have been killed, and more than a million displaced, with thousands now living in camps across northern Kenya.

The current drought that threatens the lives of thousands of persons is exacerbated by the Ethiopian government’s ongoing blockade of the Ogaden region. Hundreds of thousands of internally displaced persons and refugees are facing starvation as a result of the regime’s atrocities and denial of unrestricted access for humanitarian organizations, human rights advocates, and Ogaden organizations such as ours, who wish to provide relief to the tens of thousands who have been victimized by the government’s brutal counter-insurgency campaign and the rapidly expanding famine. It is undeniable that the Ethiopian government is using its blockade of the Ogaden as an attempt to conceal both its war crimes and the deteriorating humanitarian situation.

The international community can no longer accept Melez Zenwis’ ongoing obstruction of humanitarian aid for the desperate people of the Ogaden. If the government continues to deny unhindered humanitarian access, the international community must take swift and appropriate action to halt the expanding crisis. By “action,” we mean humanitarian intervention to ensure the safety and well-being of our people.

Resolve Ogaden Coalition urges the United Nations Security Council to take hold of the situation in the Ogaden and take the following steps.

First, it must openly condemn the indiscriminate targeting of civilians and the ongoing blockade of the Ogaden.

Second, it must call for the immediate disarming of government-sponsored militias, particularly the “Liyu Police,” and demand that Ethiopian armed forces cease all forms of targeting civilians and immediately allow unhindered access to the Ogaden for humanitarian agencies, the international press, and international human rights monitors.

Finally, we urge the UN Security Council to spearhead and facilitate political negotiations between the Ethiopian government and the Ogaden National Liberation Front. The conflict in the Ogaden is based on a crucial issue, which is the colonization of the Ogaden people. Therefore, any negotiations must address the Ogaden people’s right to self-determination, which should be addressed through an independence referendum

__________________________________________
Resolve Ogaden Coalition is a national nonprofit organization devoted to developing and maintaining a just and lasting solution to the longstanding conflict in the Ogaden region through the implementation of comprehensive policies that ensure the development and protection of the socioeconomic, political, and human rights of the region.

I’ve recently been a bit upset at the various blogs and environmental reporting which I read all the time. Just as drought is not the cause of famine, I have a similar problem with the common argument that we’d better fix climate change, the greatest threat ever to humanity (not to suggest that it is not a threat, it is). This is how I responded to a recent Mongabay interview

Ok, now that I’ve read this article, I’m even more depressed. As good as Brian Thomas is trying to be, and Mongabay, they are missing the real issues and, as such, the public are being continually misled into which path we should be on, or trying to get on.

When I was young, the dinnertime pitch was: “Eat your food – think of those poor starving Ethiopians”. Today’s famines are, like climate change, just continuing manifestations of the same problems we had in the 60s, 70s, 80s… Clearly, climate change is perhaps going to be one of, if not THE, greatest manifestation caused by the underlying problems of society, but addressing climate change as a single issue will be devastating.

Thomas says/implies that the issue is about producing too much carbon. No. That is the result of much graver underlying problems. 40 years ago the world was very unequal, with the rich overly exploiting the poor. Today, after decades of technological advance and development and aid and debt and interest and growth, the world is far more unequal. Thomas is, of course, right to be concerned by the ethics, but it goes far deeper than climate change.

Famine is not due to climate change, it is due to the developed nations taking far too much and not leaving/giving enough to the undeveloped nations for them to survive. It’s that simple. When a country starves while simultaneously producing millions of tons of grain, vegetables, meat, gadgets, clothes, etc. for export, which is necessary for them to be able to be able to pay back their aid and loans provided by the benevolent developed nations… well, this is not just shameful, it is unconscionable. The result is that their people starve to death, and we consume more – they create more pollution because of their production and transportation, and we produce more because of our consumption. So yes, the result is climate change.

Thomas says: “It would be a tremendous boost for the developing world if the West could assist them in skipping some of the steps to development”. He missed a great opportunity to state the truth here. He should have said that “It would be a tremendous boost for the developing nations if the West could assist them in skipping entirely everything related to development, whilst at the same time reducing their own development and consumption dramatically. In this way, carbon emissions will inevitably fall, and the equality gap will be reduced, and there will be plenty left over for the developing nations to feed and shelter their people. Oh, and as the need to accumulate massive profits and fortunes decline in the West, it will be much easier to redistribute that to the starving masses”.

Obviously I could go on and on, but I’m preaching to the choir, just like the deniers are preaching to their choir. Somehow we need to transcend this problem and find a way to preach to the audience, and not to the choir. And to preach in such a way that it becomes evident that there are only a very few viable solutions, and that just as the world’s resources are highly finite, the time available to implement these solutions is infinitesimal, even compared with the ‘long’ history of civilisation, just some 11,000 years or so. Climate change is not slow moving, as Thomas suggests, even though many indeed see it that way. Climate change is faster than a speeding bullet. Where is Superman when we need him the most, or even better, a team up based on equality with Superwoman?

Acutally, we all need to acquire very quickly the altruism and morality evoked by such fictional figures…

My opinion is that what ‘we’ all need to acquire is not altruism and morality but humility and frugality, and not being so endlessly dependent on the rest of the world to keep us.

It seems to me that the problem of Europe and its derivatives is already the moral high ground, where a modicum of practical self-sufficiency allowing others to keep their own resources to use for their own purposes would help enormously.

I mean, ‘we’ don’t need 10 cups of coffee every day, do we? One is plenty. The rest follows, name your product . . . .

[…] Somalia is shaping up to be yet another case study of mass starvation as an intentional act of governance. it is true that the country is burdened with an official government whose remit extends only a short distance from the capital, a long-running drought, poverty, limited local supplies of food, and logistical factors that complicate imports from elsewhere, not least the near-total destruction of the country’s infrastructure by 20-odd years of civil war. and as a result, local cereal prices are more than 2 to 3 times what they were in 2010 in some areas. Ed Carr of USAID noted this month that there are “no real jobs to earn money to buy imported food, and the livestock are dying, meaning livestock owners cannot sell them off for food.” but Carr also hints at another problem: “we cannot get in to these areas with our aid.” That is why, despite similar drought conditions in parts of neighboring Ethiopia and Kenya “famine stops at the Somali border.” […]

[…] Somalia is shaping up to be yet another case study of mass starvation as an intentional act of governance. It is true that the country is burdened with an official government whose remit extends only a short distance from the capital, a long-running drought, poverty, limited local supplies of food, and logistical factors that complicate imports from elsewhere, not least the near-total destruction of the country’s infrastructure by 20-odd years of civil war. And as a result, local cereal prices are more than 2 to 3 times what they were in 2010 in some areas. Ed Carr of USAID noted this month that there are “no real jobs to earn money to buy imported food, and the livestock are dying, meaning livestock owners cannot sell them off for food.” But Carr also hints at another problem: “we cannot get in to these areas with our aid.” That is why, despite similar drought conditions in parts of neighboring Ethiopia and Kenya “famine stops at the Somali border.” […]

[…] biggest worry, though, is Somalia. University of South Carolina geographer Edward Carr writes on his blog, “famine stops at the Somali border.” This is in part due to extreme political instability in […]

[…] In Somalia, a total lack of effective governance has undermined the resilience of communities, destroying their ability to cope with the drought. Few would argue that governance is anywhere near ideal in northeastern Kenya or southeastern Ethiopia. Indeed, both regions are politically marginal and arguably marginalized by the governments in Nairobi and Addis Ababa respectively. But, in part as a result of initiatives that those countries’ governments have taken, with the strong support of international donors, the food shortages –- serious as they undoubtedly are -– are not currently at the famine proportions seen in Somalia. […]

[…] In Somalia, a total lack of effective governance has undermined the resilience of communities, destroying their ability to cope with the drought. Few would argue that governance is anywhere near ideal in northeastern Kenya or southeastern Ethiopia. Indeed, both regions are politically marginal and arguably marginalized by the governments in Nairobi and Addis Ababa respectively. But, in part as a result of initiatives that those countries’ governments have taken, with the strong support of international donors, the food shortages –- serious as they undoubtedly are -– are not currently at the famine proportions seen in Somalia. […]

[…] question, especially at a blog devoted to development and poverty issues. On this note, I share Edward Carr’s quiet outrage: After reading a lot of news and blog posts on the situation in the Horn of Africa, […]

[…] Ed Carr, blogging on Open The Echo Chamber, points out that if humans have caused this disaster, we can also prevent the next one. Dave Algoso injects a little hope on his blog, Find What Works, by sharing three uplifting videos. […]

[…] Ed Carr, blogging on Open The Echo Chamber, points out that if humans have caused this disaster, we can also prevent the next one. Dave Algoso injects a little hope on his blog, Find What Works, by sharing three uplifting videos. […]

[…] Ed Carr, blogging on Open The Echo Chamber, points out that if humans have caused this disaster, we can also prevent the next one. Dave Algoso injects a little hope on his blog, Find What Works, by sharing three uplifting videos. […]

[…] Ed Carr, blogging on Open The Echo Chamber, points out that if humans have caused this disaster, we can also prevent the next one. Dave Algoso injects a little hope on his blog, Find What Works, by sharing three uplifting videos. […]

[…] Ed Carr, blogging on Open The Echo Chamber, points out that if humans have caused this disaster, we can also prevent the next one. Dave Algoso injects a little hope on his blog, Find What Works, by sharing three uplifting videos. […]

[…] Ed Carr, blogging on Open The Echo Chamber, points out that if humans have caused this disaster, we can also prevent the next one. Dave Algoso injects a little hope on his blog, Find What Works, by sharing three uplifting […]

[…] Ed Carr, blogging on Open The Echo Chamber, points out that if humans have caused this disaster, we can also prevent the next one [30]. Dave Algoso injects a little hope [18] on his blog, Find What Works, by sharing three […]

[…] Ed Carr, blogging on Open The Echo Chamber, points out that if humans have caused this disaster, we can also prevent the next one. Dave Algoso injects a little hope on his blog, Find What Works, by sharing three uplifting videos. […]

[…] Ed Carr, blogging on Open The Echo Chamber, points out that if humans have caused this disaster, we can also prevent the next one. Dave Algoso injects a little hope on his blog, Find What Works, by sharing three uplifting videos. […]

[…] accountable governance and functioning markets return, so we have a ways to go. And given that this famine was not caused by drought (the drought exacerbated other underlying factors), the fact that we are having trouble […]

[…] Climate update : Is climate change to blame for famine in the Horn of Africa? (via LEARN FROM NATURE)Causes of the Somalia faminePlanting Trees on Farms Can Greatly Improve Food Security“Somalia, the Horn of Africa and Food Security”UN Declares End to Famine in Somalia, Danger RemainsDrought does not equal famine […]

[…] coverage was confused. Most could not separate drought from famine (which led me to write my most-viewed post ever), attributing the causes completely to the weather. Others played up the Somalia terrorism angle […]